Hillsborough County Student Surrealist Art Exhibit

“Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.”
–René Magritte, surrealist artist

About this year’s exhibit

Initiated in 1985, this annual art exhibit presents work by middle and high school students who are invited to explore ideas and visions similar to those explored by Dali and the surrealists.

Since the time of the Egyptians, portraits have served as documents that record an individual’s likeness at a particular moment in time. While traditional portraiture provided information and clues about the sitter’s characteristics, interests, social status or history, artists in the surrealist movement approached portraits and self-portraits in a non-traditional manner, as exemplified by the works of Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Leonora Carrington, and Frida Kahlo (though she rejected the title of “surrealist”).

According to curator Tere Arcq from the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City, “This genre became a form of representation ‘in which the artist is both subject and object and conceives of how she looks in the sense of how she sees rather than how she appears.’” How we perceive and express ourselves—our identities—is much more complex than what we see in the mirror. The surrealists strived to reveal their hidden, authentic selves by delving into the subconscious. To this group of artists, surrealism—literally meaning above and beyond realism—was the truest way to express ones’ identity, and they used techniques like transformation, symbolism, shock and surprise to depict these non-traditional portraits.

Please note: The Student Exhibit is located in The Dali Museum’s Community Room, which is sometimes closed to the public for private events. If you plan on visiting the Museum to see the Student Exhibit, please call ahead of time to check if the Community Room is open.